District Price Review Committees (DPRCs) have been setup in all the 24 districts of the province under the chairmanship of District Coordination Officers. The DPRCs hold regular meetings, fix prices of essential food items which are implemented in the districts. Price lists issued by the DPRCs are displayed by the shopkeepers at their places of business which are regularly checked by the inspectors of Food Department. The defaulters and challenged, cases registered against them and punishments awarded to them by the concerned courts of law.

ii. Since taking over in December 2002, the present Government is trying its best to improve quality of essential food items and to keep prices under control. For this purpose, the Food Department has accelerated market inspections, checking and raids.

iii. Food Department will continue the campaign vigorously but carefully to avoid unnecessary embarrassment, to keep the prices under check and the quality in tact.

iv. As regards wheat atta, 85% of the requirements is met through supplies from Punjab for which the Food Department can not fix any price as such the price of atta is determined by market forces.

v. In order to keep the prices of meat and the prices of animals under control before Eid-ul-Azha, the Cabinet has approved a summary to take all necessary steps to stop smuggling of cattle to Afghanistan. Necessary instructions have been issued to all concerned in this regard.

vi. The law relating to price and quality control is defective as many public agencies like Food, Health, Industries/ Labor; Local Governments are doing this function. There is need to consolidate the activities and to hand over this function to one Department to make the system effective. The cabinet has approved constitution of a Committee to examine the food lows to submit proposals to make the relevant law / rules more effective.

RAMAZAN PACKAGE:

To ensure adequate availability of wheat/ atta in the market and to keep its prices under control, the Provincial Government Launched a programme in the name of Ramazan Package where under an additional release of 33600 tones of wheat was made to flour mills in NWFP to manufacture 1.5 million bags of 20 kg atta for distribution amongst the general consumers in the province giving concession of RS. 1/- per kg (RS.20/- per bag) to the consumers. With the package, prices of atta remained under control during the Holy Month of Ramazan and availability was also adequate. The Food Department, District Government and Superintendents of police in all the districts with their personals remained engaged for distribution of atta on Sundays during Ramazan. The package was launched and completed successfully which was appreciated by all segments of society including press.

DISPOSAL OF OLD GUNNY BAGS AND TARPAULINES:

685949 empty gunny bags and 3178 tarpauline lying in Food Department godowns since many years were classified, declared surplus and finally auctioned during October 2003. This way apart from generation of funds to Government ex-chequer, the storage capacity of Food grain godowns was also built-up and space made available for in coming stocks of wheat etc.

DISPOSAL OF DAMAGED WHEAT AND DISCOLOURED SUGAR:

The Chief Minister NWFP was pleased to constitute a Committee as under for inspection of infested stock of wheat lying at various PR Centers/ Sales Points in District Chitral:-

1. Dr. Ghulam Sabir Shah, Entomologist, Agriculture Research Institute, Tarnab Peshawar.

2. Dr. Arifullah District Officer Livestock and Diary Development, Chitral.

3. Mian Saeed-ur-Rehman, Assistant Director (Food), Directorate of Food, NWFP Peshawar.

4. Mr. Muhammad Iqbal, District Food Controller, Chitral (Coopted member)

i) The Committee inspected the PR Centers /Sale Points in District Chitral and made recommendations for sale/ writing off of infested wheat. Consequently a summary has been prepared by the Food Department and submitted to the Chief Minister NWFP for seeking orders of the Government. In the meantime, the Committee also inspected the discolored / damaged sugar stock of 47.558 tones lying in various Food Grain Godowns of central districts and recommended to the Governments for its early disposal as this sugar was lying for about 8 years and has become unfit for human consumption. The committee has recommended that use the sugarcane be used as concentrate in animal feed as substitute of molasses.

ii) Consequently The Food Department has taken up the case with Finance Department for write off of 47.558 tonnes damaged/ discolored sugar in order to avoid any for these damages to other stock and also built up storage capacity for incoming stock as well.